Wouldn’t it be so cool if you could pull a cool mind-reading trick in front of your friends at the next party? Well, what if I told you that you can!
Mentalism is, after all, all about performance and the human psych. You need to be confident in yourself to observe your audience and misdirect them enough to pull off the trick, leaving their minds blown!
Although mentalism is a learned art and takes a ton of practice, I am going to share 3 easy Mentalism tricks that take very little practice and can be done by anyone.
Red Hammer
With the Red Hammer mentalist trick, you use the power of suggestion and predictability.
You ask your audience member a series of rapid-fire questions at the beginning that’s designed to confuse them, throw them off and plant an image in their subconscious. By doing so, you set them up for a predictable answer to your final question: Can you think of a color and a tool?
Now you might be wondering why the audience member will say red hammer and you are right to ask so. The trick is to ask a series of rapid-fire questions before arriving on that final question and ensuring that those questions subtly corelate to red and hammer.
Here’s an example of rapid-fire questions:
What’s your favorite Christmas meal?
Which actor played Thor in Marvel?
What planet comes after the Earth?
What is your favorite thing about Valentine’s Day?
What is your favorite pizza topping?
Can you think of a color and a tool?
See how we slipped in questions that would make you think of “red” and “hammer”?
The trick is to ask these questions very quickly, one after the other, leaving no time for the audience member to think.
Triangle Inside a Circle
You won’t need any sort of prop with this trick. You have to rely on conversation and a suggestible mind.
As a Mentalist, you have to plant images in the subconscious of your audience member.
How exactly does this work? Get your audience member to do the following:
First, imagine a shape “that’s like a square but not a square” then, imagine another shape around that shape
In order to get the answer you are hoping for – triangle inside a circle, you mist be suggestive in your performance… very subtly.
When you tell them to imagine a shape that’s not a square, try tracing a rectangle and then a triangle in the air, for instance.
Most people will automatically choose triangle if square isn’t in the options.
And when you tell them to imagine a shape “around” another shape, naturally, that suggests a circle.
There is a small chance this might not go 100% in your favor but that is where the power of performance, confidence and practice comes in. If you do this trick a few times and learn the mannerisms and confidence within subtlety needed to execute it, you will have a mind-blown audience.
Guess The Dice
This trick requires more mathematics but the result? You will be putting on a heck of a magic show!
So, the trick is to accurately guess the two numbers your audience member had rolled on their imaginary dice (in their heads!). This trick will involve a bit more practice than the other two as it involves memorizing an equation.
Are you ready? Here are the steps to tricking everyone:
· Ask your volunteer to roll imaginary dice to get two imaginary numbers
· Without telling you, make them choose one imaginary number and double it (x 2)
· Next, tell them to add 5 to their answer (+ 5)
· Tell them to multiply the answer by 5 (x5)
· Ask them to add the result to the second imaginary number
· Finally, ask them to tell you the answer out loud.
· Guess the number they began with
· For you to guess properly, all you have to do is subtract 25 from their answer.
· The two digits of the answer you come up with are the numbers they started with.
Let’s have a closer look:
Say your audience member chose 2 and 10
Double the number 10 (10 x 2 = 20)
Add 5 to the number (20 + 5 = 25)
Multiply the answer by 5 (25 x 5 = 125)
Add the result to the other imaginary number (125 + 2 = 127)
Subtract 25 (127– 25 = 102)
Those two digits are the imaginary numbers they began with: 10 and 2!